Blood from a patient is usually withdrawn by means of a blood collection needle and stored in a blood bag. Inside the blood bag is an anticoagulant to ensure that any blood collected will not coagulate. To collect blood, a phlebotomist would insert the needle to the vein of the patient so that blood is drawn and passes via a tube into the blood bag. After the blood bag is filled, the tube is crimped. Different components such as red blood cells, plasma and platelets can be obtained from the blood for further testing or use.
The following problem exists for such conventional blood collection. To wit, once the blood bag is filled, the phlebotomist needs to pull the needle out of the patient's vein. The only thing that the needle is molded to is a piece of elastomer that acts as a hub for the phlebotomist to hold onto. Thereafter, the phlebotomist has to thrust the needle into a blood collection tube, as for example a VACUTAINER tube, so as to remove samples from the blood bag. To do this, the phlebotomist has to hold the VACUTAINER tube in one hand and thrust the needle through a rubber stopper that is fitted to the VACUTAINER tube with her other hand. The vacuum in the VACUTAINER tube causes the blood sample to be drawn, through the needle, from the blood bag. When the VACUTAINER tube is filled, the phlebotomist has to remove the now contaminated needle from the tube. Ordinarily the phlebotomist has to repeat this process a number of time, as a number of VACUTAINER tubes of blood samples are required for the different tests. Accordingly, if a phlebotomist were to take blood from the blood bag for three VACUTAINER tubes, she would have to thrust the needle through three rubber stoppers into three different VACUTAINER tubes. Thus, there are three chances that she could miss the rubber stopper and instead have the needle (contaminated after the first use) stab her hand at the area between her thumb and wrist. Needless to say, with the current crop of blood-borne contagious diseases, such inadvertent exposure to contaminated blood needs to be prevented.
There is a product in the market which allows a phlebotomist to snap a needle thereinto, for piercing the rubber stopper of a VACUTAINER tube. However, this available product does not protect a user from contaminated blood that may be dripping from the end of the needle.